Manawatu Evening Standard. Circulation, 3,500 Copies Daily. TUESDAY, APRIL 5, 1910. FARMERS WITH CAPITAL.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLI, Issue 9182, 5 April 1910, Page 4

Manawatu Evening Standard. Circulation, 3,500 Copies Daily. TUESDAY, APRIL 5, 1910. FARMERS WITH CAPITAL.

: The Hon. Hall-Jones' cabled statei ment that New Zealand is now securing as emigrants numbers of farmers with capital will be welcomed in the Dominion if it proves to be correct. Hitherto New Zealanders have looked askance at the emigration policy, and they have had cause to, as undoubtedly a wrong class of person has been brought out by State aid. Instead of filling vacant places in the industrial system or assisting in the production of wealth from the soil, many of them have almost immediately joined the rank« of the unemployed in the cities. Farmers with capital, on the other hand, would be an ideal class of emigrant worthy of every encouragement the State can offer. In the present stafee of the Dominion as regards the land available for settlement, however, the prospects before such emigrants are certainly not of the brightest. In fact until more land is opened up and thrown open for selection New Zealand has really little use for an emigration policy - for farmersNumbers of people will be absorbed by the demands of the labour market, but the Dominion, can only receive real and lasting, benefit from the settlement of its at present unproductive lands. This is the goal towards which the Government should aim if it wishes to get the best results from the expenditure. A considerable stir has been made in England and Australia over the comments upon the treatment of married emigrants with children in the Commonwealth, and in this connection the Labour Department of the Dominion supplies some interesting in-' formation regarding the prospects in New Zealand. The experience of the department is that if a married couple is wanted on a farm, couples with children are generally barred. This is very often owing to want of the necessary accommodation in the house 1 of the farmer. In this way the work '

of the department is limited to a great extent, as the majority of applicants for farm work have either one or two children. It has been found, however, that many employers take a fair view of the position when proper representations are made to them by tho Department; and they will often engage a good couple even although they may

happen to have one or more children. It may be added that in the cases of married couples being wanted for positions on farms it is more often the services of the wife that are in requisition rather than those of the husband. The domestic servant difficulty has become so acute that married couples are now often engaged for

farms when it is really the wife's services alone that are required. A good domestic in a farm household can command at the present time £52 (and found) a year, whereas married couples can be got for as low as £72 (and found) per annum. An efficient ploughman and farm labourer, with a wife who is an efficient general servant, will not accept under £120 a year. These details cast an interesting sidelight on the question of emi-

gration, and show that while children

are regarded as some disqualification against employment, little actual hardship is caused thereby, and certainly the position is not so serious as writers in' England have alleged.